I hate to say it, but it was almost a pleasure to watch the Oscars this year. Not that that's a good thing. The best way I have found to survive the mind-numbing five-hour endurance test that is watching the Oscars live on TV is to store up a lethal dose of rage and bile, and gradually expend it in the direction of the simpering gallery of celebrities as the hours crawl by.

The 2002 edition, sad to say, was largely inoffensive, relaxed and dignified. Last year, for example, we witnessed a quivering Russell Crowe progress from near-psychotic breeziness at the start of the event to messianic levels of aggression as he stalked up to receive his best actor award for Gladiator. This year, the guy was a pussy cat: he barely registered a frown when a concerted anti-Russell vote ensured he lost out as best actor in A Beautiful Mind.

The BBC made a bit of an effort this year, hiring a studio in LA and installing Jonathan Ross to supply material to cover the US commercial breaks. (Last year, Sky just hooked up to a live feed and, after a two-minute preface by Barry Norman, we never saw a friendly face again.) From a British point of view, the structure of Oscar events is clear: the first three hours, when you're feeling reasonably alert, is a parade of inconsequential awards; by the time it really begins, at around 5am, you are ready to swing an axe. So it had better be good.

So, for the first 45 minutes, Ross orchestrated a quiet orgy of British backslapping while bulletins emerged from the pre-show red carpet walk. The red carpet is a special TV place, especially when you watch it live. There's the Stepford-level insincerity of the automatons who conduct the 20-second interviews of passing big names; the strange orange glow of the celebrities' make-up; the obvious befuddlement, embarrassment and/ or hysteria of those unused to this kind of attention. (Sissy Spacek appeared comfortingly bewildered; Renée Zellweger convincingly insane.)

At 1.40am, Whoopi Goldberg descended from the ceiling on a swing in a silver lamé chorus-line outfit; three minutes later she was already apologising for the lameness of her one-liners. At 1.48am, the watching millions were thrown a bone in the shape of the first award (Jennifer Connelly's best supporting actress), accompanied, naturally, by the first idiotic speech. We weren't to know that it would be another 78 minutes until the next award of any substance (Jim Broadbent's best supporting actor) would materialise.

How did we pass the time? Ross managed it by expertly switching between a string of British guests - building up Alan Cumming as if he were the second coming; acting as if Trinny Woodall were difficult to get; ushering in that admission of defeat, Greg Proops. The real hit of Ross's links, however, was US import Dyan Cannon, who not only lent an improbable air of class to the proceedings, but also emitted a constant demented cackle.

Shortly after Connelly's award, however, we got to see the real casualties of the evening: Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland. Roped in to speak whatever awkwardly scripted links were necessary while Whoopi was off doing her costume changes, they exuded embarrassment. Somehow, you feel, MASH, Fatal Attraction and Don't Look Now weren't worth this kind of humiliation.

The first Brit hit the stage at around 2am: no, it wasn't anyone I'd heard of, either. Peter Owen, the terrifyingly camp make-up designer for Lord of the Rings, lisped his thanks in a truly preposterous tasselled tuxedo. He cheered me up, at any rate.

Twenty minutes later came the first real shock of the evening: actual humour. Woody Allen turned up to shill for New York City's film industry. His first words after a standing ovation: "That makes up for the strip search." In an ocean of mediocrity, a flash of class.

By 4am, when Sidney Poitier tottered forward to collect his honorary Oscar, things had got really grim. He was the star of the show so far, but quite how Hollywood is able to contemplate its own (terrifyingly recent) history of racism with such equanimity is beyond me. Poitier's adoring applause was undoubtedly deserved, but it might have been more appropriate for the audience to look ashamed and shuffle its feet.

The Poitier award (which overshadowed the honorary Oscar won by study-in-human-decay Robert Redford, I'm glad to say) was the lead-in to the big events of the night. Just after 5am, four and three-quarter hours down the line, we got to the big stuff. Halle Berry's Oscar showed the real power of live TV: was this woman going to have a heart attack in front of millions? No one could be sure. Packaged highlights just aren't the same. And Berry broke new ground in other ways than simply for her ethnic background: she was the first Oscar winner I have ever seen to thank their lawyer twice. You go girl!

Denzel Washington, the final third of the African-American Oscar triumvirate, took to the stage with a touch more gravitas - though he had to cope with a late-breaking attempt by Julia Roberts to be the evening's prize idiot as she coyly announced: "I just kissed Sidney Poitier."

After all the excitement, the ceremony ended on a down note, as boredom merchants Ron Howard and Brian Grazer picked up the last two awards, for best director and best film for A Beautiful Mind. Weren't they at all embarrassed that they had defeated two geniuses, Robert Altman and David Lynch? Apparently not. This is Hollywood, after all.